pretalx is a conference planning tool that covers the part of an event most tools handle badly: the run-up. It hosts the call for papers, collects and reviews submissions, manages the speakers and their availability, and then turns the accepted talks into a published programme. It is used by community and professional conferences alike and is run both as a hosted service and as software you install yourself.

Key Features

• Call for papers builder — define submission types, tracks and languages, and add your own questions with the field types and validation you need.
• Review and selection — reviewers score submissions against your own criteria, review phases can be opened and closed per round, and anonymised review is available where blind selection matters.
• Speaker management — speaker profiles and availability live next to the submission, so a talk, its abstract and the person giving it stay one record.
• Schedule editor — drag talks between rooms and slots, then publish a versioned release of the schedule so the public page changes when you decide, not while you are still shuffling.
• Public schedule and widgets — a speaker-friendly schedule page, embeddable widgets and exports so attendees can put the programme in their own calendar.
• Communication — templated emails to speakers and reviewers from inside the tool, so acceptances and reminders do not depend on someone’s mailbox.
• API and plugins — a documented REST API and a plugin system for everything from ticket integrations to custom exports.

Why Use pretalx?

The useful thing about pretalx is that it refuses to guess. The call for papers, the review, the decision and the published schedule are steps of one workflow with an audit trail, so when a speaker asks why their talk is in the small room at nine in the morning, the answer is in the system rather than in a thread. Publishing is explicit and versioned: the public programme only changes when a release is made.

It is deliberately focused. If your event needs abstract review and a programme, pretalx does that end to end without dragging in a ticketing platform or an event website builder — the schedule can be embedded in whatever site you already have.

Use Cases

• Community conferences with an open call for papers and a volunteer review team.
• Multi-track events that need rooms, tracks and per-track reviewers.
• Organisers who want the public programme generated from the submission data rather than rebuilt by hand.
• Teams that must self-host the call for papers because speaker data is confidential until announcement.

Requirements

pretalx is a Python application that self-hosts on Linux behind a normal web server, with Docker images and a documented installation path. The hosted service at pretalx.com runs the same software for organisers who would rather not maintain it.

Alternatives

• Indico — a broader event system that adds registration, room booking and badges alongside the programme.
• OSEM — combines a call for papers with registration and sponsor management for community events.